Have a ‘surprisingly large’ number of other countries copied the UK’s Rwanda plan?

With the government’s Safety of Rwanda Bill continuing its passage in the House of Lords today, Full Fact looked into a claim that other countries were seeking to copy the UK’s plan to process asylum claims in a third country. 

Earlier this month a headline in the HuffPost claimed that “a surprisingly large number of countries have copied [the] UK's Rwanda plan.”

This is not quite right. Although the countries mentioned in the article—Austria, Italy, Germany and Denmark—have explored the option of using a third country for processing asylum seekers with a view to determining their right to move to those countries, the UK’s proposed Rwanda scheme goes further than this, as it removes asylum seekers’ rights to seek asylum in the UK. 

The HuffPost article also mentions the Emergency Transit System which removes asylum seekers from Libya and transports them to Rwanda. This scheme is funded by the EU and is very different to the proposals being put forward by the UK.

Full Fact contacted the HuffPost and the headline of the article has since been amended to say that some other countries “could copy” the UK scheme. We are grateful to the HuffPost for making this change.